Oakland Mayor Calls Trump ‘Racist’ for Opposing Sanctuary Cities

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called President Donald Trump a “racist” on Wednesday after her city was mentioned during a White House meeting Tuesday about how to tackle so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Speaking to a gathering of law enforcement professionals at the White House, Trump had said: “Sanctuary cities release thousands of criminal aliens out of our prisons and jails and back into our communities. They go into those sanctuary cities when they see them; they go there because they feel they’re safe. And in many cases, they are very bad actors.  We have gang members; we have predators, rapists, killers. A lot of bad people.”

Shortly thereafter, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan singled out Oakland:

Let me talk about a couple of recent examples.  What just happened in Northern California and Oakland.  A law enforcement agency in Merced County, California arrested a Mexican national for robbery and multiple weapons violations, including carrying a concealed weapon, and willful discharge of a firearm and gross negligence.  This alien was previously released from local custody back into the community in November 2017, following his arrest for conspiracy to commit crime and vandalism.  Despite the fact we issued a detainer, he was released.

He is one of the many public safety threats we targeted during the most recent operation in Northern California that we weren’t able to locate.

Since our operation in San Francisco and Oakland, three of the people we couldn’t locate have since reoffended.  The one person I just talked about was just arrested for robbery and multiple weapons violations.

Schaaf responded angrily, according to Politico, saying that the remarks at the White House were “a continued perpetration of a racist lie, that immigrants are not valued members of our society.”

She made no effort to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

Last month, Schaaf provoked nationwide controversy by warning illegal aliens about an impending ICE sweep through Northern California. She was later found to have altered business owners, as well as organizations that specialize in assisting illegal aliens.

The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating her for obstruction of justice.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.